If you’re like me or any other person anywhere ever, you want to eat more as your mileage climbs. I personally can honestly say that, having run a combined 40 bajillion miles between yesterday and today, I’m inclined to go stalk a mighty zebra and chomp on its haunches National-Geographic-style for a while. Or something.

Now, you see, I try not to worry about food and weight loss and all that, as the other morning I lost nearly half a pound in one run, when a ginormous blister on my left foot popped.

Ew.

Anyway, my point here is that, as you eat more, you have more opportunities to SCREW UP. So I’m here to once again write about proper nutrition. Why do I write about food so much? Because I want to give you a complex. And also, I want to show you a couple of simple dietary substitutions to help you run longer, faster, better, healthier, and — most importantly — HOTTER. So. Welcome to…

People are always asking me how I stay so healthy, given that I’m usually tempted to snarf down a few cans of frosting after particularly taxing workouts. I usually respond by pointing and saying, “Hey, what’s that????” and while these questioners are distracted, I fly away on a purple velociraptor to CandyLand, because these people who ask me these things are not real, but are instead made-up so that I have an excuse to write my latest post. In said post, dear readers, I give you information for which you did not even ask, because I’m magnanimous, biznitches.

So. How do I stay healthy? READ ON, hot stuff!

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THE RUNNERS’ COOKBOOK

A compendium of favorite recipes to make you energetic, happy, healthy, and only a little gassy.

Good-Morning Melange — A delicious way to start your running day.

Ingredients:

1 banana

2 T. peanut butter

Peanut Butter Puffins, to taste

1/4 c. Pepto Bismol

1 quart water

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Directions:

1. Wake up at 5:30 AM.

2. Slice banana into bowl.

3. Add peanut butter, sprinkle with Puffins.

4. Gently fold together and eat, alternating with vigorous swigs of Pepto, only occasionally sloshng it into your hair.

5. Chug water, drop to knees, vow to never ever ever drink a beverage called the “Slippery Hoo-hah” ever again, let alone five of them, you twit.

6. Run.

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Mile-Nineteen Special — An excellent mid-run or mid-race energizing snack, for those days when you don’t have a nifty little gel to suckle.

4. Oh come ON, I didn’t mean add the goddamn Baggie, OR the boob sweat for that matter. Bonehead.

5. Press mixture into 9″ x 13″ pan. Allow to cool and firm overnight.

6. Cut bar, put into baggie, stow in sports bra.

7. At mile 19, by the water fountain by the national zoo, pull baggie from between boobs. Shake off boob sweat, open baggie, chow down while monopolizing water fountain and grossing out happy well-meaning tourists.

8. Shake out legs while stoned kids on nearby sunny meadow hill say, “Dude, she just pulled food out of her BOOBS.” (This actually happened.)

3. Accept congratulations from Mark Wahlberg, running next to you for a while now, on the awesome race you’re running.

4. Use Twizzler as a straw to suck up the sweet, sweet Powerade.

5. Reflect on the beauty of life.

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Mile-Thirty-Five Surprise — For those times on the course when you’re feeling “not-so-fresh.”

Ingredients:

Orange wedges (several dozen)

Running singlet

Fist

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Directions:

1. Snatch orange wedges from race volunteers, remove shirt, use it as a crude basket in which to carry as many orange wedges as you can grab.

2. Suck the sweet juice out of the oranges, riiiiight down to the nasty rind, then throw the suckers at Mark Wahlberg’s face, because he has gotten mean in the last few miles.

3. That purple raptor of his is looking testy as well. Give it a roundhouse to the jaw while you’re at it.

4. Suck down more orange goodness. You need your strength, Spartacus.

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Mile-45 Desperation Cocktail — For when you should know better, yes, but you’re a badass, dammit.

Ingredients:

2 cups sweat, squeezed from ponytail

1 leftover Powerade Dixie cup

1 saline IV

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Directions:

1. Now you’ve done it. You are 3 miles from an aid station in either direction and you can FEEL the moisture draining from your body. Even your eyeballs feel dry. Even your toenail-beds feel parched.

2. Lose will to go on…with racing, with life. Drop to knees in the middle of the trail, raise fists and wail, Baz-Luhrmann-movie-style: “ULTRAMARATHONNNNN!”

3. A dramatic thunderstorm begins.

4. Just kidding. There’s no water out here. But you do have that cup and all that sweat in your hair…

<let’s skip ahead a bit>

7. Wake up in med tent with foul, salty taste in mouth. Sit up stock-straight, point and yell, “What’s that?” As race med volunteer turns, remove IV from wrist, remove needle, suck as much as you can from tube before scampering away because YOU ARE A CHAMPION OH MY GOD THIS IS GREAT AND YOU DON’T AT ALL WANT TO DIE BAAAAHAHAHAHAHA.

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Post-Race Delight

Ingredients:

2 cans Diet Coke (12 oz.), very well chilled

1 little complimentary bar of hotel soap

1 hotel shower

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Directions:

1. Go back to hotel post-race, remove clothing, get into shower as usual.